LINDON DODD: Got to find the haystack, then the needle – Evening News and Tribune

I like that glasses suggest intelligence instead of broken eyes!

Jonathan Vinson

I had one of those kind of afternoons all people probably have but nobody knows about them.

I was getting ready to do my daily push-up regimen. I say daily but every once in a while I might skip a day or two and then begin a new consecutive string.

Anyway, the whole reason to tell you that is that when I do my push-ups I remove my eyeglasses. When I say eyeglasses, I really might as well be saying I remove my eyeballs.

My vision without being corrected would rival that of a cave-dwelling bat. If I had my eyeglasses removed and stood 10 feet in front of a mirror I would not be able to positively identify myself if I were under oath in a court of law.

So, routinely I set the glasses down and went to the floor. After my brisk workout I was attempting to catch my breath. As Donovan once musically proclaimed, Ah, but I may as well just try and catch the wind!

Senior moments is such a cruel and stereotypical description that I almost hesitate to use it. Just say I am not unfamiliar with the definition and/or working context of the concept! I have no idea either. Sometimes the words just type out.

Suffice it to say a futile attempt by definition could be defined as someone without their eyeglasses who is looking for their eyeglasses. Sorry, I refuse to accept that I need a 1950s school librarian neck chain not to lose my glasses. I dont refuse to accept that it might possibly be time to wear one. I refuse to add another unfashion statement to my once hip and suave wardrobe. Nowadays a bathroom robe and slippers might be considered ample proof for boasting to someone that it counts as getting dressed for the day.

I know what you are all wondering at this moment boxers or briefs?

I was not looking for a needle in a haystack I am saying I couldnt see the haystack. My eyes have always been bad. In the second grade we took an eye exam. To my knowledge I was 6 or 7 and had never had one. Some people thought I was a teachers pet because I sat in the front row. Heck, she wrote in letters two feet high on the chalkboard, and I had to be within a six-foot radius to read them.

I admit to being a pretty good student and probably sucked up to the teachers.

I got eyeglasses and thought I had been reborn. The earliest I can remember was an optometrist telling me that in one eye I had 20/200 vision. If my math is right that is about 10 times worse than someone with 20/20. I looked it up. I was considered to have what is called a severe visual impairment.

And when it comes to night vision that 20/200 would be considered eagle-eyed. If I were out somewhere after dark and misplaced my eyeglasses I would have to just camp out there until dawn.That first pair of spectacles were black, thick-framed and had lenses the size of the bottom of the old-time Coca Cola glass bottles you know the ones we used to pick up on the road and get a nickel each for at the store. As a kid that was like the California Gold strike. I could walk a mile and redeem enough bottles to go grocery shopping at Lawlers General Store on Allison Lane.

And by grocery shopping, I mean candy buying in bulk.

Anyway since my days in the second grade, eyeglasses now are almost a status symbol. My new prescription pair are Ray Ban. They have very thin bifocal lenses, razor-thin blue-tipped frames and almost give me a totally different appearance. I am no Chris Hemsworth, but I think I look the best that a pair of eyeglasses can influence considering what we are working with here.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness detour on the story. I didnt mean to go all Robin Williams on you.

Where were we? I am trying to remember. I dont want to have to go back and read this thing again.

Oh, yeah! I was looking for my eyeglasses that I had misplaced while I wasnt wearing my eyeglasses. In case you just feel a need to know I think the longest time it ever took for me to find them after a set of push-ups is 8 to 10 minutes. And yes, swearing was involved.

Since I paid three times as much for this pair of glasses as I did for my first personal car, losing them would be like suffering a loss from a major financial investment in my future.

I am not proud or embarrassed by my story. I am not bragging about still doing a daily regimen of push-ups. I am proud, however, to still engage in one very physical activity that doesnt involve grunting and/or being seated.

As you can probably guess by now the story had kind of a happy ending. I did find my eyeglasses strewn about somewhere in the living room after feeling my way around like the old Musky the Mole cartoon character on Deputy Dawg.

In todays vernacular I would be considered visually challenged. I suspect the terms four eyes, blind as a bat, and Professor Gizmo are now considered politically incorrect.

I prefer the term visually enhanced. Sounds like I had a vision enlargement.

Future blind-squirrel-finding-a-nut-in-a-snowstorm-moments will again be an appropriate analogy. Or, as my son likes to add with his judgmental appraisal of me at the eyeglass-missing moments, Mr. Magoo; youve done it again!

Ah, remember the good old days when we could make fun of the hard of seeing?

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LINDON DODD: Got to find the haystack, then the needle - Evening News and Tribune